writing into summer
June 6–9, 2024
Meditation & Mindfulness, On Land Retreats, Personal Transformation, Writing Workshops, Yoga, Wellness & Embodied Living
Lifting a brush, a burin, or a stylus is like releasing a bite or lifting a claw.~ Gary Snyder
Suppose you had a long weekend to devote to your writing practice just before the brink of summertime. How would this focus and play support and change your creative landscape?
In this retreat your writing will be inspired and supported by:
- new writing prompts.
- contemporary readings.
- discussion.
- daily movement practice, including yoga.
- the four postures of mindfulness.
- reading your original fresh drafts aloud.
- listening to new work of others.
You’ll write trade-off poems and go solo. Wandering the hills and valleys of Drala Mountain Center, you’ll speak like a grownup to growing things. You’ll stay close in and write the rhythm of swinging doors.
With the support of our group and the beginnings of summertime, you’ll have the room to let down your guard. You’ll experiment with new forms, both simple and layered. You’ll write your memory body and slip notes into your pocket to discover later on.
You’ll follow where the pen takes you, now. You’ll write what has been waiting to be written.
You’ll write out of stillness, how you move, and breathe, where you are, what you know, what you like.
You’ll read and write poems, lists, prose, notes. You’ll write loose and you’ll write small.
Then you’ll share excerpts of what you’ve written.
Through discussion and your own musing, you’ll return home from writing into summer with refreshed ideas of how you’d like to move forward with your personal writing practice.
*~ This retreat is mostly generative, with affirmative feedback and no critiques ~*
Mixed levels of experience welcome.
Retreat Faculty
Katharine Kaufman
Katharine Kaufman teaches meditation, yoga, writing workshops, and contemplative dance in Boulder County, at Drala Mountain Center in Colorado and online. Katharine is ordained in the Soto Zen lineage by Roshis: Vanja Palmers and Kobun Chino. She studied Yoga in Mysore, South India, and taught for many years at The Yoga Workshop, Studio Be and […]